Temple of the Winds

Crying hysterically, Kahlan raced after him. out into the wild night. She had to do something to mend that heart. She couldn't let him endure the pain she had caused him. She loved him more than life itself, and she had done the worst thing possible lo him.

Outside, the wind howled across the mountain. She could see his black shape, his bare arms, in the flashes of lightning as he headed for the road.

As he reached the edge of the cliff at the end of the road, Kahlan threw herself on him, dragging him to a halt.

The sky was a savage show of violent discharges. Thunder thumped in her bones. Lightning ripped across the sky followed by deafening booms. Beyond the edge, when the most powerful of those bolts struck, the Temple of the Winds was there- but only during those fierce strikes. Between those strikes, there was nothing but empty space.

"Richard, what are you going to do?" "I'm going to stop the plague."

"When will you be back? I'll wait here. When will you be back?" He stared into her eyes a long moment as the storm raged around them. "There is nothing here for me."

Kahlan clutched at him. "Richard, you have to come back. Come back. I'll be here, waiting. I love you. Dear spirits, I need you. Richard, you have to come back to me!"

"You have a husband. You have given him an oath. . and everything else." "Richard, don't leave me alone," Kahlan wailed, on the edge of hysteria. "If you don't come back, I'll never forgive you." Richard turned to the edge of the cliff. "Richard, you have a wife! You have to come back!" Thunder shuddered the mountain.

He looked back over his shoulder. "Nadine is dead. I am no longer bound by my oath to her. You have a husband, and an oath. There is nothing here for me."

Brutal cords of lightning slammed into the road beyond the edge of the cliff, bringing the Temple of the Winds into full view. Golden cloak billowing out behind, Richard leaped into the lightning. "Richard! I'm here! I'm here for you! We can find a way! Please come back to me!

When the frenetic flash cut off, the temple was gone. Another flash came, and the soaring towers were back for a second, weaker this time, and then gone again.

Kahlan dropped to the ground, clutching Richard's black shirt to herself. She had destroyed him.

From the side, Kahlan saw a streak of red. It was Cara, racing for the edge of the cliff. She leaped just as another flash erupted, lighting the Temple of the Winds into the world of life. She landed on the road in the sky, and when the flash was gone, so was the Temple of the Winds, Richard, and Cara.

Devastated, Kahlan stared silently at the rampaging storm, seeing from time to time the towering, phantom temple in another world. It never looked solid enough again, or she would have jumped across. She should have. She couldn't understand why she hadn't. Why had she just stood here? Because Richard didn't want her. She had betrayed him.

How could he do this to her? He said he would always love her. He said they would be together in the next world. He made her promises. He swore his eternal love. So had she, and she had betrayed him.

From somewhere out in the storm. Kahlan heard the distant sound of laughter. The malevolent chuckle made her skin crawl. Drefan strolled up beside her. He was alone. "Where's Nadine?" Kahlan asked.

Drefan cleared his throat. "When the lightning came. and she saw it was me, and not Richard, she screamed. She went crazy. She leaped over the edge of the mountain."

Kahlan stared up at him. Richard knew. He told her Nadine was dead. Richard was a wizard. She had seen that, too, in his eyes, at the end, before he jumped across. She saw magic in his eyes. "Where's Richard?" Kahlan stared out at the empty air. at the black wall of night. "Gone." On the road to the Temple of the Winds, in the eerie silence, Richard drew his sword. Its alien feel surprised him for an instant, until he recalled whose sword it was.

He was no longer the Seeker of Truth. He had had all the truth he could stand. It wasn't night, here, nor day, yet there was light. It wasn't like sunlight-more like an overcast day, with no hint of exactly where the sun was. But he knew that there was no sun here. This was not the world of life.

This was a part of the underworld-an isolated, remote, obscure niche in the world of the dead. It was as if the wizards had found an out-of-the-way hole in which to hide the Temple of the Winds. It had been similarly hidden when in the world of life.

The dark walls of the immense Temple of the Winds rose up before him, the twin towers soaring up into trailers of mist. The entire side of Mount Kymermosst was here-the whole part that was missing in the world of life.

Richard knew where he was going. He knew more than he had ever known before. Knowledge was flooding into his mind. He was a war wizard. The Temple of the Winds had opened a floodgate into his mind. It was feeding him all he needed to know, and more.